"Promise."
She promised again, little thinking that the crisis of which he seemed to have a foreboding was so near at hand. A dark day came within two months when her soul was rent with the knowledge that he lay stark and cold in that very library where so much of his life had been lived. Marie gathered her into her arms and held her tight. She stared aghast at a world which frightened her by its emptiness. At her side stood Ben, his lips twitching, and in his eyes that haunting fear which always foreran the father's struggles. A month later the boy did not come home one night, but came after three days, a feeble wreck of a man. She tore open the letter the father had left, and this took her to Barstow, with whom he had evidently left instructions. That was five months ago, and in the meanwhile she had grown from a very young girl into a woman.
This was the sombre background to her frightened thoughts as she lay in her bed next to Marie. In the midst of all the figures which haunted her, there stood now one alone who offered her anything but fearful things—and he was a stranger. Out of the infinite multitude of the indifferent who surrounded her, he had leaped and within these few hours made her debtor to him for her life, and now for partial relief from a strain which was worse than sudden death might have been. In spite of other torments it was like a cool hand upon her brow to know that out in that chaos into which the boy had plunged, this other had followed. She had perfect confidence in him. After all, it is as easy in a crisis to pick a friend from among strangers as from among friends.
CHAPTER VIII
The Man Who Knew
There are several members of the New York police force who think they know their Chinatown; there are several slum workers who think they do; there are many ugly guides, real guides, who think they do, but Beefy Saul, ex-newspaper man, ex-United States Chinese immigration inspector, and finally of the Secret Service, really does. This is because Beefy Saul knows not only the bad, but the good Chinamen; because he knows not only the ins and outs of Chinatown, but the ins and outs of New York; because he knows not only the wiles and weaknesses of Chinamen, the wiles and weaknesses of ugly souled guides (and of slum workers), but best of all, because he knows the several members of the New York police department who think they know their Chinatown. But like men who know less, Beefy Saul enjoys his sleep and naturally objects to being roused at three o'clock in the morning, even though in the east the silver is showing through the black, as Donaldson pointed out, like the eyes of a certain lady when she smiles (as Donaldson did not point out). Beefy came down in answer to the insistent bell which connected with his modest flat—it ought to be called a suite, for the lower hall boasted only six speaking tubes—and he swore like a pirate as he came. Finally the broad shoulders, which gave him his name, filled the door frame.
"I don't give a tinker's dam who you are," he growled before he had made out the features before him, "it's a blasted outrage! Hello, Don, what in thunder brings you out at this time of night? You look white, man, what's the trouble?"
Saul hitched up his trousers, his round sleepy face that of a good-natured farmer.
"I want you to do me a favor if you will, Beefy. I know it 's a darned shame to get you out at this hour."